keyless entry in automobile is a commonplace, but this concept has only reach our homes in recent years. unlike auto’s variety, home keyless entry suffers from short battery life, mainly due to the fact that it has too many things to do. hey, after all, keyless entry for home are smart and are essentially, part of the whole Internet of Things fad. while the development of Bluetooth LE does help to alleviate the problem, it does so at the expense of range. so in order to achieve the whole nine yards, which may include things like locking and unlocking remotely, sending digital keys to guests, in-laws or your domestic helper and more, WiFi is essential, which also happens to be the contributing culprit to the poor battery life. however, there is new smart lock contender that promised to do everything a smart lock does while offering a battery life that lasts 12 months.

hail from Australia, Genie Smart Lock is the smart lock that have cracked the battery life woes by combining the use of Bluetooth LE and WiFi, but it didn’t do so by packing in both wireless technology into the lock – that would be disastrous; it does so with a secondary device known as Genie Hub. Genie Hub is basically a bridge, a WiFi hub, if you like, that draws power from the grid and serves as a ‘translator’ to convert WiFi signals from your smartphone to BLE that your smart lock could understand and vice versa. with the power hungry WiFi outsourced, so to speak, it keeps the smart locks’ battery drain to a minimum and thus enable it to offer a mortally practical battery life of a year. the only problem we see is, power outages, which may render your smart lock ‘half smart’ as it will take away the long range remote functionality. other than that, it sounds like the best of both worlds and could be the best smart lock option thus far.

we see WiFi functionality primarily as long range communication with your lock, but Genie Smart Lock is perfectly find being a BLE-only device. additionally, it also offers traditional key access for those without smartphone and there is also a Bluetooth FOB which will grant access to its holder. the outfit behind Genie Smart Lock, GSL Innovations Pty Ltd, aims to ship the system in Q4 2014, which seems like a bold promised considering that the product appears to be still in its early development phase, but if there is any reassurance at all, Genie Smart Lock recently snapped up a $10K grant from St. George Bank – Kick Start Your Start Up competition. anywho, if you enamor by the concept, you can actually pre-order yours now at a discounted price of $249.